We write with an important update regarding the 2022 Emerging Researchers National convening and the HBCU-UP/CREST PI-PD meeting. Our team at AAAS, like most of your organizations, has been carefully watching the evolving status of the COVID-19 pandemic along with emerging variants. While we earnestly seek to once again join our colleagues in person to advance science and serve society, the decision of when to do so must be made with careful regard to the safety of our community members and the most up-to-date data. In consultation with our NSF Program Officers and given the information that we currently have available, we have decided to postpone both our ERN & HBCU-UP/CREST PI-PD meetings.
We know this news will be disheartening to many of you and, in fact, it is very disheartening to us. Our team has been diligently planning for the past six months to welcome you back to our in-person gatherings. We ask for your patience as we take the necessary time to consider the most effective ways to transition these meetings so that we may continue to support you and your colleagues as we move forward together. We currently anticipate that both ERN and the HBCU-UP/CREST PI-PD meetings will be postponed until 2023; however, these possibilities are not yet solidified, and concrete details will be coming soon.
We ask that you please hold onto your questions for the moment, so that our team may focus on garnering the necessary information as quickly as possible to provide to the entire community. Please keep a lookout for forthcoming correspondence from the AAAS team to discuss the next steps for community members that have made travel arrangements through AAAS’s travel agent (AMEX Concur) to attend the ERN or HBCU-UP/CREST PI-PD meeting. We thank you in advance for your patience and understanding and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this news will inevitably cause.
Sincerely,
